


Shadow by the windowsill

by colorfulcharades



Category: Thunderbolt Fantasy 東離劍遊紀 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Lovers to Enemies, Future Problems, M/M, Major Character Injury, Murder attempt, Past Relationship(s), Present Problems, Reminiscing, SYX being a bastard-Freeform, Shang sweetie I'm so sorry, Unresolved Sexual Tension, a whole mess-Freeform, ex-detective SBH, inspired by neo-noir, mercenary SYX, not exactly a happy ending, one being sent to kill the other, past problems, they need therapy and they're too old for this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:59:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24033157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colorfulcharades/pseuds/colorfulcharades
Summary: The chaos came with Shang Bu Huan, and it never really left.
Relationships: Sho Fu Kan | Shāng Bù Huàn/Shu Un Shou | Shòu Yún Xiāo
Comments: 7
Kudos: 4





	Shadow by the windowsill

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Isabelu_u](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isabelu_u/gifts).
  * Inspired by [I Feel You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22384741) by [Isabelu_u](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isabelu_u/pseuds/Isabelu_u). 



_Greed._   
As he leaned away from him, all he felt was greed.   
His lips tasted like nostalgia, crept upon his senses a brush of western winds, a ghost of a kiss that was never meant to start, and will never lead anywhere except the deepest pits of despair. 

Oh, _despair_ , a trusted friend. It builds up in pressured waves as it dawns on him what happened. 

_Cold_. At a loss of feeling Shang Bu Huan, it was only fitting to feel frozen in the aftermath. 

After the kiss, it's just an endless tide of silence between them both, breathless desperation turning into realization; and then, into regret.   
He moves away completely, tracing a pattern of the red lights outside to avoid the truth of that which took place a second ago. 

Shang was staring at him. He pretended not to notice.   
He pretended not to see the ever-glistening onyx and clouded skies within his eyes, the same shade of darkened gray he was looking for in every single thing after he had seen him last. He tried not to let his thoughts wander on what was supposed to be long since a part of the past, a craving too real and anguish hidden away under a thousand masks of his, now back after everything to burn his soul away.   
He almost chuckles then, a mind of a cynic only now growing weak enough to face the fact and finally understand. 

_The chaos came with Shang Bu Huan, and it never really left._

After the almost ironic rush of morbid euphoria, air became tight. The warmth of another, so close, toxic.   
He needed cold. He needed space. 

With that thought in mind, he abandoned Shang's side then, wordless, to lean against the open window and light one more cigarette, gazing down at the blinding red lights from across the street.   
And again, he wondered what the fuck was he doing, back abusing the same drug he should never have tasted in the first place, deceiving himself for years that he was over it. Over him. Over everything. 

  
Smoke entered his lungs slowly, soothingly.

He hated it, the attachment, the fact that it scarred him when Shang left as if he was still some fool in his twenties. It was never supposed to escalate, let alone take hold of him the way it did. And even after all this time, he tried convincing himself over and over that there was nothing meaningful since the first time he saw him.   
It was never supposed to last, not nearly as much as it did, back when the only thing that kept them in the same place was a common enemy and the only time they spent together a bloodstained night he could barely recall.   
They agreed back then, in silence, that it was all meaningless. 

It wasn't. A meeting by chance became more than one meeting. A coincidence. Then a one-night stand. A mistake. Then constant pestering thought about where he was. Pathetic. Then happening to meet him again. Likely a mistake too.

Then getting attached. The biggest mistake of all.

And now, what of it? Four years spent in festering regret and cursing the words unsaid trying to forget him, yet he couldn't even bring himself to pull the trigger and get the job done. He couldn't stay away from the damned voice of Shang Bu Huan, from his eyes and his scent and the texture of his lips and the agony following him everywhere, ever since he left.   
And _oh_ , how he wanted to ruin, break things around this room and despair like a child, because the person in front of him was supposed to be a nobody.   
Yet still, after all that happened, he remained everything. 

Resentment was seeping into his thoughts like a poison. 

_Weak._  
_He was still so fucking weak._

* * *

  
It ended way too early. 

  
Shou Yun Xiao almost killed him. And then he made him feel it again, a reminder of heaven he had in his arms before everything dissapeared.   
Then he pushed him away, and crushed him back into reality just as harshly so. 

And ever since he moved, Shang couldn't stop looking at him, hands limp by his sides and paralyzed in yearning, in a sudden overwhelming need to embrace, to touch the shoulders of a person who was no longer his.   
In a futile attempt to sedate himself, he allows his mind to linger. 

  
Feeling almost alone, empty aside from his thoughts, he tries to memorize his form standing by the window.   
The red lights be damned, they make him look so beautiful. 

  
He was looking again. Staring. And yet, Shang couldn't tear his eyes away from his figure leaned on the windowsill, for every fold of clothing and every outline of a body underneath brought back memories, vivid and feverish. 

And _oh_ , how he tried to push these thoughts away, to burn them to ashes so they wouldn't dance behind his eyelids every time he slept, to forbid them so they wouldn't be louder than his guilt in the time of confrontation. He tried, even now, to forget. 

  
He couldn't. This was their room. 

They have seen so much before. They have _done_ so much before. Shang couldn't take his thoughts away, he wasn't able to for four long years. What made him think he could silence them now? 

With every intake of smoke Shang remembers how his fingertips used to trace the outlines of his ribs. With every second, he envisions his hands gripping bruises into slender wrists now resting against the windowsill. With every blink, he recalls weaving blooming red marks along the line of his neck. 

With every heartbeat, the taste of his lips burns Shang's tongue. 

There was a feeling boiling inside him, yet he could not identify it as anger. He couldn't indentify it as anything, really.  
But then, the figure on a window puts out the smoke of his cigarette, and turns to approach him once again.   
Shang’s mind is torn between instinct and depression.   
His head hurts. He closes his eyes. 

  
What was Shou going to do now?   
If only he had done anything in the first place, punched him, killed him and got it over with, yelled **_I don't know you!_ **at Shang's confused stare, anything would be better. Anything would be better than the numb stupor he was living in for the past four years.

Instead, he does nothing. The cuffs give way under the clicking of a key, freeing his bruised wrists at last.

“Leave”. 

He doesn't believe his eyes when he sees it happening, but he is sure the sound and the feeling of being set free wouldn't have betrayed him. 

“What...? Why-“

“Leave. Get the fuck out of my sight”. 

  
And again, for a hundreth time that night, all he knew how to do was stare ahead at the face he wasn't sure he could recognize any longer, freezing numbness stealing the precious air from his lungs and, though he wanted to say so many things at once, he chose instead to avert his gaze at last. 

The words render him aghast, and he stays that way, unmoving, mind and heartbeat racing in uncertainty and all he tried to focus on was to get his head to work. 

  
And when he looks back, Shou is already so far away, leaning once again at his windowsill, cigarette in hand, as if nothing ever happened in the first place. Again, Shang opens his mouth to say something, anything, to cut through the air and the tension and the intent to harm as if it was nothing for him, as if it didn't hurt like a dozen of knives forced through his lungs. As if his chest, without that wretched presence, didn't feel so empty. 

  
But the word is said like a final judgement, and a slip of mercy is a mistake likely not to be repeated again. Shang knows everything of it, he learned that much through all the years he spent regretting. 

Feeling for an anchor on the freezing grey wall, he forces himself to stand up once again. As he does, pain shoots through his nerves angrily, his leg not nearly ready for walking, but he forces his lips not to part, forces his breath to stay still and not betray him with a sound. 

And as his tired body inches closer to the door, he doesn't bother taking his eyes off of Shou’s back turned to him. 

When he makes it to the door, just before walking away from the only person he loved for what could be the last time, he stops dead in his tracks. 

“What about them? They’ll come after you-”

“None of your business. Get out”. 

  
Closing his eyes as his heart sinks below, he takes it as a final word for the choices he had made, a final reminder that he lost everything and, without wasting a second more, he steps through the open door soundlessly. 

Not a footstep, not even a click of the doorknob is heard in his leave.   
Leaned against the windowsill, a hand loosely holding a cigarette won’t stop trembling. 

* * *

Rain soaking through his clothes and with wind in his hair, Shang stumbles through the door into the dusty apartment, barely keeping himself upright. 

He closes the doorknob as if he never held anything heavier, back leaning against the door and shutting his eyes tightly. There was a pulsing throb spreading through his thigh and his shoulder, marks of freshly bandaged wounds that wouldn't heal completely anytime soon.

The mess of thoughts and regret and agony swiveled before his eyes like an omen.  
He wished to fall. He wished to faint. He wished it all to be over with.  
But more than anything, he wished to feel the cold of his lips once again. 

Grabbing his head to try and soothe the ever-worsening headache with freezing fingertips, he sinks down to the floor and closes up on himself, allowing the cold and soothing dark to guide him into unconsciousness. 

What a painful lesson was it, learning what it meant to return too late.

**Author's Note:**

> Uh... long time no see, I suppose?
> 
> First of all, please ignore grammar mistakes and nonsense writing, it's p late at night in here T^T
> 
> Second of all, apologies for no ShangLang content lately, finals are kinda hydraulic-pressing me rn but I'll do my best to update more often!
> 
> That being said, been feeling kinda angsty lately so I took an angsty crackship to vent my angst out on, and what better than two (2) chronic tsundere idiots who are Too Old For This Shit 😔
> 
> Quarantine situation has got us all pretty low on energy, so be kind to yourselves, drink tea, wash your hands, and stay safe!


End file.
